Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

“Or I go the third way, and I do what they say. I become a marionette. It’s a breach of my judicial responsibility. But then at least Duncan and I aren’t arguing over child custody.”

“Child custody? Honey, you could be taken into custody. As in, jail time. If anyone can demonstrate that your judgments were suborned, that’s a major felony conviction.”

“What the hell can I do, Martie? I’m screwed any way I go.”

Martha was silent a long time. Juliana could hear the clink of silverware against china, the tinkle of ice in water glasses, the murmur of people around them. Then Martha reached over for her purse, lifted it onto the table, took out her wallet, and began going through it. Finally she seemed to have found what she was looking for. She took it out and held it up. A small white business card, its edges frayed and soiled. “There’s one other way,” she said, handing Juliana the card.

Juliana took it and glanced at it. It read PHILIP HERSH, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, and listed an address in the Park Colonnade Building in downtown Boston and a phone number.

“A private investigator?” she asked. “And you trust him?”

“With my life. Because I have... Trusted him with my life.”

There was a long silence. Neither woman spoke for a while. Finally Juliana said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” said Martha. “I don’t. It was a long time ago.”

Juliana nodded. It felt like she was on the verge of something life-changing, something permanent and irreversible. She put the card facedown on the table, touched it with her fingertips, feeling the cardboard as if it were warm and alive. She drummed her fingers on it for a few beats.

“What do you think he can do for me?”

“You are being extorted,” Martha said. “Blackmailed. You have to fight fire with fire.”

“That’s not who I am.”

Martha sighed. “Do you know how hard people have worked to help you get where you are?”

They both knew Martha was referring to herself. “I know,” Juliana said, “and I’m incredibly grateful.”

“You have so much at stake. You’re being mentioned in the right circles now. Governor Wickham is behind you. You’re being talked about for other judgeships. And maybe one day not too far in the future — who knows. The high court. You have a bright future ahead of you. And you need to play this right. We need to make this go away .”

“And how can this PI make it go away?”

“I can’t tell you that. Maybe by turning the tables on this — what’s his name?”

“Matías.”

“Right. Track him down. Find out who he’s working for. If you’re trying to outplay a blackmailer, you need to get the goods on him.”

She nodded.

“Honey, everyone has a little smudge on them,” Martha said. “Why do you think our robes are black? So they don’t show the dirt.”

The Park Colonnade Building had been built in the 1920s and still had a vague sort of Roaring Twenties feel to it, all the swooping gold paint on the ceiling, the high-gloss tile floor, the gold letter boxes. Juliana half-expected flappers with feathered headdresses to be thronging the lobby and a newsboy in a flat cap shouting, “Read all about it!” On the third floor, down a long, gloomy corridor, she found Hersh Investigations, gold-leaf letters on a frosted-glass panel inset in a heavy oak door. It looked period-appropriate. Ironic. Like a film noir prop. She knocked on the door, then went to turn the knob. It was locked. In a few seconds a shape loomed behind the glass panel and then the knob turned and the door opened.

The man she assumed was Philip Hersh wore horn-rimmed eyeglasses and was balding, with a short gray fringe above his ears. He looked like a shrink from the days of the old Bob Newhart Show . Or a 1970s talk show host. Despite the heat, he was wearing a corduroy jacket over a mock turtleneck.

Her second impression was that he was a very unhappy man. You could see it in his eyes, in the lines in his face.

“Judge,” he said. “Come on in.”

It was a tiny one-room office, not much more than a closet, with a crowded desk in one corner. Not promising , she thought. Certificates and plaques in black frames adorned one wall in a haphazard arrangement; the other walls were lined with bookcases filled with criminal law volumes and law dictionaries and journals.

In front of the desk was one ladder-back chair piled high with magazines. The visitor’s chair. He hoisted the magazines away and said gently, “Please, have a seat.” He sat behind the desk and moved aside a stack of books so he had a direct line of sight to her. “Tell me how I can help you.”

“I’m being blackmailed,” she began.

Hersh asked dozens of questions about that night in Chicago, things she was embarrassed to talk about, especially with a total stranger. She was surprised at the range, the granularity of her recall. No, he had no tattoos that she saw. No, she was sure she hadn’t seen him before that evening in the rooftop bar. Yes, she would have noticed him; he was an attractive man. Not in the lobby, not in an elevator; no, she’d not seen him before.

“Do you know whether he is in fact a lawyer or not?”

She shook her head. “Not for a fact, no.”

“Did you ask to see his credentials when he introduced himself in court?”

“Of course not. That’s not my job.”

“Do you think he lives in Boston?”

“The lead defense attorney said he’s in the Chicago office of his law firm. So I assume he lives in the Chicago area. Do you think Matías Sanchez is his real name?”

“We’ll see. It’s pretty simple to figure out if Matías Sanchez is admitted in Massachusetts. Just look in the Red Book. Won’t take long at all. When will you see him again?”

“I’m not sure.”

“When he threatened you, did he give you a deadline?”

“A ruling in their favor once I receive and review all of the Slack chats the defense wants withheld.” She shifted in her seat. “What can we do to neutralize his blackmail?”

“We find out who he is and who he works for. That’s where we start. Then, if we’re very lucky, I catch him in the act of blackmailing you.”

“Is that possible?”

“No guarantees. I’ll do what I can. How did you get assigned this case? Did you choose it?”

“It was randomly assigned to me.”

He smirked. “Randomly,” he said. “I wonder. Are you being followed?”

“Followed? How would I know?”

“You might not.” He was quiet for a long while. Then he said, “Well, you might start to notice the same person in different locations. Or cars that seem to be lurking in your neighborhood.”

“If they’re any good, I suspect I wouldn’t see any trace of them, right?”

“Unless they want you to know they’re there.”

“Huh.”

“Can you summon Matías and the other lawyers in on some pretext?”

“I suppose I could. But why?”

“The more you interact with Matías, the better, from my standpoint. The more opportunities for me to follow him, trace him.”

“What happens when you do? If you do?”

“Then we’ll have some decisions to make.”

“All right. Let me ask you something, just putting it right out there. Do you think they’ll release the tape, make it public? Could that really happen?”

He shrugged, scowled. “Look, you take every precaution to prevent disaster. Knowing you may fail.”

“Dark,” she said.

“But what do I know?” he said with a hollow laugh.

Saturday night was the big St. Jude’s fundraiser, which everyone in the Boston political world attended, a black-tie benefit at the Copley Plaza Hotel. Duncan didn’t do black tie; he wore his black suit with a black necktie — he wore the same thing to funerals — and considered that a major concession to the powers that be. Because he’d gained a little weight in the last couple of years, he wasn’t able to button the suit jacket.